Chocolate Box Letter

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Dear Heather,

Finding the inspiration for this series of letters in a Chocolate Box is a gift. Thank you. First I feel the need to tell you a little about who I am now. It’s like warming up and stretching your muscles before exercise. I am an unabashed dreamer of dreams. Most of what I would call the “good” things in life have been a dream for me. Do you know the saying, “Better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all?” There’s a lot of truth in those words but I would add, “Better to have dreamed sweet dreams than to only have lived the nightmare.”

My earliest memories of childhood and my family center around violence. My mother and father fought tooth and nail; they would put me or my sister or my twin brothers in the middle. They not only needed an audience it was like a tag team effort, especially for my mother. I am the youngest of the four by many years. My mother told others that I was her oops baby. What she told me was that if abortion had been legal I never would have been born. My sister, 15 years my senior, and my brothers, 12 years my senior, ruled me with the same iron fist that my parents had raised them with. But they were all grown and gone from home by the time I was 6, so for most of my life I tried to make myself a ghost in that house…unseen, unheard, and most of all unnoticed. To this day, I can pass through a room without drawing attention, I speak very softly and there are few people in this world who have made the effort to hear my voice. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it’s not.

My parents both drank but my Dad was proclaimed the alcoholic and he was an alcoholic. My Dad was my salvation, my hope, and my beacon of light. He is the reason I survived and he is also the reason I almost didn’t survive. When my parents would fight it wasn’t unusual for weapons to come in to it. My mother was fond of knives and using my brothers to fight her battles. My father finally armed himself with a gun. Physically, I stayed out of the battles but when they raged with shouts and cursing and many times shots fired into the ceiling; I was a forced witness to the action. During one especially nasty encounter, I was hiding in my room when the shot that rang out came through the wall and only missed me by inches. There’s a voice in my head that wants to say, “So what.”

“There are lots of people who have experienced violence.”

I have to still that voice because this was my home, and these weren’t strangers, and I had no place else to go to get away from it.

My Dad was my best friend. He took me away from the meanness as often as he could. We fished together. He taught me how to bait my hook and how to set my line and how to take a fish off. He taught me to listen for the song of the bobwhite on a cool spring day. He taught me to watch out for snakes and snapping turtles. Those were the times when I smiled and laughed and was glad to be alive. Two fishing trips in particular stand out in my mind. The first was when I was about 10 years old I think. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and while most of the kids I knew were at home watching cartoons, I was at the lake with my Dad. By this time I was becoming a pretty good fisherman if I do say so myself. Dad and I would have contests to see who could catch the first fish, the biggest fish, the most fish, and so on. I wasn’t having much luck that day. My Dad had eased out onto a log that was partially submerged in the lake and to hear him tell it he was matching wits with the granddaddy of all fishes. When suddenly he leapt straight into the air, did an about face, and landed back on the shore. I saw this and ran over to find out what was going on. He was pale and shaken. I looked down and realized he was standing there with only one shoe on. In my ten-year-old mind that struck me as extremely funny and I laughed. I asked him what happened and he raised his arm and pointed out to the end of the log he had been standing on. There was his other shoe with the biggest snake I have ever seen curled up around it. His shoe was still tied. It was a cottonmouth water moccasin, a very poisonous snake. We sat on the shore together for a few minutes while my Dad calmed his nerves. Then he got a long tree branch and retrieved his shoe. We kept on fishing that day and while I don’t remember the fish we caught or didn’t catch, I remember Dad jumping out of his shoe.

The other fishing trip that I most often remember was one we took when I was about 14. For three years my Dad had been teaching me to drive going to and from our favorite fishing spots and that summer one of the more violent battles in our home had resulted in a broken leg for my Dad. He was in a cast from his foot to his hip and I became the designated driver. Since my mother had steadfastly refused to learn to drive a standard shift, I was the only driver. I drove my Dad to work, I drove my mother to the grocery store, I drove back to pick Dad up from work, and I drove us to our favorite fishing places. One of our favorite fishing places was a lake with a small island in the middle of it. Weeping Willows grew on the island with long branches reaching out over the water. It was a hot day the kind of day when every living thing seeks the cool of some shade. My Dad propped himself up on his crutches and cast his line just under the fingers of those willow trees and man were the fish biting. It felt to me like he would sing out, “Caught another one, Doll Baby!” every few minutes. I would run over to him, take his fish off the line, and he would cast and sing out again. I was getting so frustrated; I didn’t have time to fish myself. I kept trying to get farther and farther away from his calls to me but that only meant I had farther to go in the heat to help him. I was sucking down the icy cold soda he had bought for me like there was no tomorrow. At long last he decided to take a rest and give me my freedom. I walked all the way to the other side of the lake and the island hoping it would be awhile before I was pressed into service again. I readied my line and made my cast. I knew it was a good cast from the minute the line fed out. My lure arched across the water and slid underneath the fingers of the willows slicing the water like a perfect dive. No sooner had my offering started to sink than BAM I felt a fish hit my line. I had the biggest fish I had ever felt pulling on my line. I was so excited I almost peed my pants.

I yelled out, “Dad, Dad, I’ve got one and man it’s BIG!”

“Reel him in, Doll Baby,” came the reply.

I started reeling that fish in when all of a sudden my line went slack. I would have cried except there’s no crying in fishing. I did hang my head though and quickly wipe away a rebel tear. I kept reeling in my line to prepare for another cast then about six feet from the shore my line jerked again…THE FISH WAS STILL THERE. It had been running towards me.

“Wahoo,” I shouted and brought it in to shore.

I caught a Big Mouth Bass that had to weigh in around six pounds. In my 14 years that was the biggest fish I had ever caught. I was so excited that I ran around the lake to show my catch to my Dad. I will never forget that day or how it felt to catch that fish. Most of all I will never forget the smile on my Dad’s face and the good for you hug. I don’t have very many pictures of my Dad but the one I carry in my heart is the one of him standing there on those crutches smiling at me.

Melody

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Dear Heather,

The last little bit since I wrote the first letter and moved into the manor has been filled with turmoil for me. I’m hungry and I’m facing homelessness. I emailed my son and there is little doubt in my mind that he will send me what ever he can afford as soon as he can send it. It was a struggle to get myself to finally ask him. I had to wait until I was hungry to do it. It is hard to feel like a burden to your child. As I wrote those words, the phone rang and the first word out of my mouth was shit because I didn’t want the interruption. It was my son calling he sent me enough money to help me save myself.

He said, “I love you.”

I burst into tears. And that’s where I am now. I’m going to save this, go to Western Union, then the grocery store. I’m going to eat something, feed my dogs then I’m going to revisit this letter. I know I can’t fix what I don’t acknowledge…I can’t acknowledge what I don’t understand. Thank you for building this site and hearing my voice.

Friday, April 21, 2006

When I got home yesterday, I fed the dogs, ate something, and sat to write my son a thank you. He emailed me back with the following words.

“I love you, and you know that if it is within my power I would do anything for you. We are both very proud and I know that you don’t want to have to ask for help, but I love you.”

I think sometimes that there are as many shades of love as there are of silence. After the summer of casts, driving, and fishing things began to escalate even more at home. I was past a point where I could stand witnessing it anymore. I started going out the door, window; any exit I could find and staying gone as long as possible. In the beginning, I had somewhere to go. I could show up at my best friend’s house at any time of the day or night and I was welcomed. Even when I would show up at 2:00 in the morning, her mother would just hug me and tell me to come in and go to bed. They never asked me, “Why,” They just took me in. They would feed me and make sure I was warm and safe. Then when I was sixteen her parents went through a crisis of their own. They moved to Washington State from Mississippi. When they left, I felt like I was utterly alone in this world. Dad’s bouts of sobriety were getting shorter. My mother and siblings resented the fact that I didn’t want to participate in the madness. I know what hell is; I’ve been there time and time again. I’m still waiting for my little piece of heaven. Or I guess what would be more accurate would be that I’ve learned to find little pieces of heaven in everyday things. I can turn having a cup of coffee into a spiritual experience.

Anyway, after my best friend moved away, I would sleep under a picnic table in the park to have some semblance of peace for a short time. I was a refugee in a country that had not yet discovered terrorism. The harsh voice inside me that helped me survive is saying, “So what,” again. I lived in a small town and no one ever bothered or molested me there…I found a small measure of peace. It got to the point however, that all I wanted was to be out of my parent’s house and like too many teenagers; I set about doing it the wrong way. Instead of doing it with education and independence, I ran away. I went from the frying pan to the fire.

I have to look for a job so I’m going to end this for now. If you don’t mind; I will continue to visit this later. Thanks…Mel